Day 32

Another day gone, which means there’s only 10 days left. 9 if I’m not counting today (Sunday). We woke up at 5:45 am sharp to shower and get ready for the busy day ahead of us. I think it’s either hit or miss with the showers in Europe, and the ones in Salzburg were definitely a hit. Nice and warm, good water pressure, and you don’t have to keep pushing a button to make the water come out, always a plus. After my nice shower (and blow drying session) I went back to the room and grabbed all my stuff. We went downstairs to check out. We stored our big bags in lockers and were off to the train station. We made breakfast stop at McDonald’s and then headed off to the train. Man, I miss breakfast food. The forecast predicted rain, but so far it was just cloudy. Our train was heading to Werfen, a small town about 150 km south of Salzburg. Once we got off the train, we waited for our bus which would take us part way op the mountain to the Eisriesenwelt, or Ice Caves. If you remember from yesterday, we visited the oldest salt mines in the world. Well today we were visiting the largest ice caves in the world. Pretty exciting. Our bus took us up the mountain to the ticket station. From there we had a decent 20 minute hike to the cable car. Once we arrived at the cable car, it took 3 minutes to ascend the mountain. After we got off of the cable car, we had another 20 minutes climb. We finally made it to the entrance though, and right on time. Usually, because this is such a popular attraction, the tour groups are fairly large and the tour lengthy. But when we arrived at the top, we were the only two people. So our guide greeted us, gave us a fire lit lamp and we entered the freezing ice caves. The tour consists of climbing up over 700 steps to the highest point, 1500 meters (approximately) and then climbing back down those steps, all while using the dim light of our lamp and on very slippery and narrow stairs. Thankfully our guide had a roll of magnesium that was very bright when lit. We made our way up the first set of stairs and I was in awe at how amazing these caves were. There were ice walls everywhere! Sculptures had even been formed by the melting and refreezing. It was incredible (and very cold). We came to one of our stopping points and with the glowing light, I felt like I was in the North Pole. They are very clear when you buy your ticket that photos are not allowed. But, our guide was very nice and said that because we were such a small group and there was no hurry to get through the caves, we were more than welcome to take pictures. He even offered to take some of us as well! We saw ice walls that were over 30 feet thick and huge mountains of ice. It looked like it would be fun to slide down, but I can only imagine how injured one might become if they did that. We continued walking through the caves and up more stairs until we came to the Polar Bear and Elephant statues. And they really looked like a polar bear and elephant. It is amazing to think that nature can create such a beautiful thing. We continued walking through the cave and saw more and more ice. It’s a good thing we had to walk up all those stairs otherwise I would have been freezing. We finally made it to the exit about an hour later and thanked our guide before heading back down to the cable car. After going down the cable car and walking some more, we came across some familiar faces. Remember when we stayed in Luxembourg we had a 4 bed dorm. Well, the other couple that was staying with us then just so happen to be walking up this mountain on the very same day that we were. What are the chances?! We had a quick little conversation to see how the rest of their trip had been going, and then we were off to our bus stop. We were done a little early so we had to wait for 40 minutes to be picked up again, but that gave us some time to relax and enjoy some strawberry cake I had picked up at the store the other day. Our bus came early and we were off to the city. Our next stop was the castle, but first, lunch. The city of Werfen is pretty small, so our options were limited. We stopped inside a grocery store to see if anything appealed, but it didn’t. We did pick up some potato and leek soup for dinner, but we were still on a lunch mission. We came across a little pizzeria and decided that this was perfect. We each ordered some soup and split a pizza. We ordered the “Werfen” pizza, which includes cheese, bacon, spinach and sheep’s cheese. And it was delicious, and filling. Now we were ready to walk up to the castle. The walk wasn’t too bad. It was short, but there were some steep spots along the way. We finally made it up to the top and the view was wonderful. We could see the mountain that we had hiked up earlier in the day, the entire city and even the Salzach river (which runs through the city). We took plenty of pictures because we had some time before the tour started. After roaming the grounds for a bit, our guide was ready to go. We started off in the chapel and learned about the history of the castle. It originated in the 10th century and was expanded over the years, just like many other castles that we’ve seen. Eventually, after a huge fire and some reconstruction, it was abandoned in the early 1800s. It was bought by the city a number of years later and opened to the public after that. The inside was pretty nice. We went into the torture chambers next and even saw the dungeon below. We went out into the courtyard and saw one of the kitchen areas. We continued walking through the castle and came to the artillery room and eventually made it to the clock tower where we were able to climb all of the way to the top. Our guide was even kind enough to ring the bell for us. It would have been nice if he warned us… After the clock tower was finished, we walked back down into the castle and saw one of the state rooms. The tour concluded and we headed down into the courtyard area to get our seats for the Birds of Prey show. A group of men came out and played a fanfare to let us know that the show was about to start. Even though all of the commentary was in German, watching the birds zoom by was pretty impressive. They were coming so close to our heads that I became a little nervous at one point. But I guess they were well trained because there were no injuries. There was even one bird that was hovering motionless about 30 feet up in the air at one point! I was very excited to see an American Bald Eagle come soaring out above the crowd. I can’t say that I ever remember seeing one before. It was really neat. We left Werfen feeling tired but accomplished. We caught our train back to Salzburg and had just enough time to grab our bags from the hostel before getting back to the train station. We arrived in Munich 2 hours later and saw that it had recently been raining. Hopefully the walk to our hostel would remain dry. And it did, for the most part. We checked into the hostel and made our way to the kitchen to cook up the soup we had bought earlier in the day. Even though we were both so tired, the soup was pretty good and helped keep us awake to figure out our plans for the next few days. After getting our internet connection, we rechecked train times and got ready for the end of the night. I was pooped. Day 33 is going to be a busy day!